Enhance Your Health Benefits Without Extra Spend
Yes, it’s possible. Here’s how.
Investing in employee health helps companies cut down on employee absenteeism, reduce the number of employee disability claims, and attract and retain top talent.
But there’s a problem:
The cost of providing private drug plans keeps increasing as more complex and specialized medicines come to market, including biologic drugs.
What are biologic drugs? And why are they a challenge to drug plan sustainability?
Biologics are drugs made from living organisms or their cells, often using biotechnology that requires a complex and costly development and manufacturing process.
Only a small percentage of patients require these treatments, but the costs can be a major drain on your drug plan:
It can cost $10,000 to $25,000 or even more to treat a single patient for one year with a biologic drug—and at scale, that’s a big challenge.
In 2023, biologic drugs accounted for just 3.9% of claims on private drug plans in Canada, but they ate up 36.4% of the total cost, draining money away from other appealing and sought-after benefits.
The Solution:
Biosimilars
A biosimilar is a biologic drug that is highly similar to another biologic previously authorized for sale.
Biosimilars work just as well as the original biologic drug, but they cost significantly less. Biosimilars are typically priced 25% to more than 50% lower than the original biologic drug.
Provide the Same Care for Less Cost
Health Canada authorizes biosimilars for sale using the same rigorous regulatory standards for quality, efficacy and safety as for all other biologic drugs, and expects no differences in how a patient responds to treatment when changing from a reference biologic drug to its biosimilar.
That means adding a biosimilars switching policy to your drug plan can reduce the cost of specialty medications by 25% to 50% without reducing the quality of care for your employees, freeing up money you can reinvest into other high-demand health benefits—like vision care, mental health support, massage therapy and more.
Without Biosimilars
$10k to $25k per
year, per person
If your plan doesn't offer biosimilars, it can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000—or even more—to treat a single patient for one year with a biologic drug.
4% of claims eat
36% of costs
In 2023, biologic drugs accounted for just 3.9% of claims on private drug plans in Canada, but they ate up 36.4% of the total cost, draining money away from other appealing and sought-after benefits.
With Biosimilars
Reduce costs
by 25% to 50%
Adding a biosimilars switching policy to your drug plan can reduce the cost of specialty medications by 25% to 50% without reducing the quality of care for your employees.
How to Make the Switch
Adding a biosimilars switching policy is easy—as long as you know how to manage the process.
We’ve put together a reference guide that outlines the process, and provides tips about how to manage everything from discussing biosimilars with your benefits provider to communicating the switch to your employees.